


for now

by poisonrationalitie



Category: Counting On (TV) RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash February, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonrationalitie/pseuds/poisonrationalitie
Summary: Jana goes for a dip in the lake.
Relationships: Jana Duggar/Laura DeMaisie
Kudos: 1





	for now

**Author's Note:**

> For Femslash February, 25. Water.

Water. Life-giver. Cleanser.

Her head breaks the surface. She gulps down air. She is the sole disturbance. The rest of the lake remains still, tranquil, a perfect mirror. Standing at the edge, looking down, one would only see their reflection, not the twisting reeds and dislodged branches beneath. Jana went in anyways. Not seeing the bottom didn’t frighten her; in what situation did she ever have all the facts? She never had a life jacket, or even the hope of a raft. She learned how to tread water with only a slack rope around her waist.

She paddles now like a dog, legs tucked in, hands flapping. Laura stands hip-deep, her cap askew. Jana probes the depths gently with her toes, feeling for any footholds. Eventually, she reaches the ground, and meets Laura in a few careful strides. Around them, the land slopes upwards in forest green to a white peak. Only fifty or sixty yards behind Laura does it turn to towering trees and a nettle carpet. The ice wind whips her skin. Full submersion was warmer.

“Come in,” she says to Laura. “You’ll enjoy it.”

“I’ll get hypothermia,” Laura replies. Jana frowns. That’s her line, making excuses for bone-crushing tiredness when a band of little boys tried to coax her into swimming. Jana had to be the responsible one. If she wasn’t, nobody would be. Her pulse pounds in the veins of her slender wrists. Her arms burn and her lungs grasp at the crisp mountain air and she is exhausted in the way one should be, after being alive, not just after living. She’s the little girl flipping upside-down on the swingset again.

She steadies herself, a hand on Laura’s shoulder, until her breathing turns to normal. Her hair hangs heavier wet, turns as dark as Jinger’s. Droplets pressed against her skin glitter in the bright alpine sun. The crust from the corners of her eyes has vanished. In spite of the soil between her toes she feels cleaner than she has in a long time, reborn, baptised not in a line of siblings but under Laura’s eye, in this hidden pool between two yearning mountains. A wet trail glistens from her chin down her neck and nestles against the seam of her swimdress.

“You look happy,” Laura says, hands hanging by her sides. Happy. Jana is happy when the dishes are done and everyone’s in bed and the show or her garden has been successful or one of her siblings had had another baby.

“I feel…” Is there a word for it? She presses her forehead against Laura’s and Laura presses back, and she wraps her wet arms and coils her fingers at the nape of Laura’s neck and they meet in the middle, lips against lips, toes curled in the soil, lake lapping at their hips. Birdsong flits through the trees.

Peaceful, maybe. For now. Just for now.


End file.
